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The Doctrine of Evolution Its Basis and Its Scope Henry Edward Crampton Books

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The Doctrine of Evolution Its Basis and Its Scope Henry Edward Crampton Books

The 5-Star rating reflects the zero stars I give the book for its veracity in terms of Science and in terms of Natural History research and studies. I give the book ten stars for being an exemplar of some, but not all, of the definitional muddle and semantic issues that have prevailed since soon after Darwin published. The terms "evolution" and "fact," in particular, are exemplified here as these terms have been usurped and misused by Darwin's intellectual descendants. I will further discuss these terms below.

This book is recommended for those students interested in the credibility of science and how over dependence on false ideology in theoretical, especially historical, science has been a detractor to all science.

The author, Henry Crampton, is given credit for providing a good summary overview of the thinking of some of his contemporaries' and predecessors' naturalistic or creationistic views. Chapter IV of the book provides a good summary of Darwin's thinking as well as some of the post-Darwinian thinking of the time. Chapters V, VI, and VII are concerned with physical, mental, and social anthropology, respectively. The final Chapter XIII similarly follows Darwin's venue of discussions and thus the topics are ethics, religion, theology, science, and philosophy. My discussion below concerns what I see as some of the muddled thinking Evolutionists have come to as they assigned the term "evolution" to Darwin's views. My discussion is based on the now common acceptance of ideas expressed in Chapters I through IV.

The multiplicity of definitions assigned to "evolution" has long been indicative of the lack of rigor associated with Natural History studies as influenced by the practitioners of the prevailing paradigm, what I have come to label Evolutionism. The term "evolution" appears on the very first page of Crampton's book where it is seen as an all encompassing notion which, in essence, provides no meaning other than to separate "naturalists" from non-naturalists. (NOTE: The "Loc." number shows the chapter, chapter page, and number of pages in the chapter in the ebook edition used for this review.)

Loc.I(1/60): "The Doctrine of Evolution is a body of principles and facts concerning the present condition and past history of the living and lifeless things that make up the universe. It teaches that natural processes have gone on in the earlier ages of the world as they do to-day, and that natural forces have ordered the production of all things about which we know."

This meaning of "evolution" as merely implying a naturalistic understanding as opposed to a supernaturalistic one is further elaborated below. If such a definition and equating of "evolution" to Crampton's "Doctrine of Evolution" were the sole definition, I wouldn't object. Julian Huxley and many other writers were vigorous advocates of such a cosmic meaning. But they, like Crampton, have also muddled research with other and more specific definitions. Such a cosmic meaning is not the meaning of "evolution" that has been taught to most school children ever since Darwin. Thus:

Loc.I(13/60): "The conception of evolution in its turn now demands a definite description. How are we to regard the material things of the earth? Are they permanent and unchanged since the beginning of time, unchanging and unchangeable at the present? We do not need Herbert Spencer's elaborate demonstration that this is unthinkable, for we all know from daily experience that things do change and that nothing is immutable. Did things have a finite beginning, and have they been "made" by some supernatural force or forces, personified or impersonal, different from those agencies which we may see in operation at the present time? So says the doctrine of special creation. Finally, we may ask if things have changed as they now change under the influence of what we call the natural laws of the present, and which if they operated in the past would bring the world and all that is therein to be just what we find now. This is the teaching of the doctrine of evolution."

Thus, we see here that the author is further defining "evolution" as a paradigm juxtaposed against the non-natualistc paradigm, Creationism. Ah, but the notion of cosmic or universal "evolution" is soon too much for the author and, as is typical of today's Evolutionists, the author writes further so as to now exclude not only supposed or actual non-organic evolution (inorganic chemistry plus whatever else might be conceived of as being within the "universe") but also considerations related to the origins of life or lives. Therefore, for the same word, "evolution," the author now gives us an additional definition, albeit of "organic evolution," as a subset of evolution:

Loc. I(17/60): "Organic evolution is thus a part of the greater cosmic process. As such it does not deal with the origin of life, but it begins with life, and concerns itself with the evolution of living things. And while the investigator is inevitably brought to consider the fundamental question as to the way the first life began, as a student of organic forms he takes life for granted and studies only the relationships and characteristics of animals and plants, and their origins."

Again, to be fair, the author does define "organic evolution" as opposed to just "evolution." But such a distinction has generally been lost with other Evolutionists.

Next, the author back tracks somewhat and foretells of a common modern definition of "change over time." He states:

Loc.I(17/60): "But even as a preliminary definition, the statement that organic evolution means natural change does not satisfy us."

Not unlike most students of today, the author fully realizes that mere "change over time" or even "organic change over time" is not the core idea of "Evolution" as expressed by Evolutionists. Thus, Crampton attempts to elucidate the supposed real meaning of "evolution" (and supposedly prove it by redefinition). In an analogy I haven't seen before, Crampton likens an "evolving" technology, rail freight locomotives, so as to more than suggest the "evolution" of life by means of descent with modifications from common ancestors:

Loc.I(17/60): "The great freight locomotive of the transcontinental lines, the swift engine of the express trains, the little coughing switch engine of the railroad yards, and the now extinct type that used to run so recently on the elevated railroads, are all in a true sense the descendants of a common ancestor, namely the locomotive of Stephenson. Each one has evolved by transformations of its various parts, and in its evolution it has become adapted or fitted to peculiar circumstances."

Astoundingly, the conclusion is reached:

Loc.I(20/60): "Evolution, then, means descent with adaptive modification."

But, hey, let us not forget the common ancestry part of the definition. Thus, with but a little more tweaking of the definition and no more factual evidence we have:

loc.I(54/60): "We have now learned that evolution means a common ancestry of living forms that have come to differ in the course of time; our common reason has shown us also that organisms are in a true sense complicated chemical mechanisms adapted to meet the conditions under which they must operate. We come now to the evidences offered by the organic world that evolution is true and that natural forces control its workings. Clearly the examination of the matter of fact is independent of the question of method."

So, now that "evolution" incorporates the notions of descent with modification and common ancestry, and since cosmic evolution and change over time are obvious understandings, let us really get to the matter and demonstrate that "evolution" and not just change over time is true.

Thus we have a repetition of Darwin's argument and supposed demonstrations, not of evolution (which is obvious) but of evolution (which is not at all obvious):

Loc.I(55/60): "In the complete scheme adopted by most naturalists, five categories include the evidences bearing upon the fact of evolution. These are Classification; Comparative Anatomy, or Morphology; Comparative Development, or Embryology; Paleontology, which comprises the facts provided by fossil relics of animals and plants of earlier geological ages; and Geographical Distribution. Each of these divisions includes a descriptive and analytical series of facts, whose characteristics are "explained" or summarized in the form of the general principles of the respective divisions. Such principles, taken singly and collectively, constitute the evidences of evolution."

The author has thus maintained the stage set by his contemporaries in providing a non-rigorous understanding of the meaning of the term "evolution" and, even worse in my view, the erroneous non-empirical use of "fact" as with "the fact of evolution." Future scholars would continue to expand the muddle with the addition of many alternative and unique definitions of "evolution" and continue the muddle regards scientific "fact".

Science: The author, by adopting an Evolutionist's sloppy use of definitions and misunderstanding of "scientific fact," does, in my contrary view, at least provide an otherwise good notion of "science". He does at least seem to accept some very sensible statements regards science. In particular, the following is quite acceptable.

Loc. I(9/60): "Karl Pearson defines science as organized knowledge, and Huxley calls it organized common sense. These definitions mean the same thing. They mean that in order to know anything that deserves confidence, in order to obtain a real result, it is necessary in the first place to establish the reality of facts and to discriminate between the true, the not so sure, the merely possible, and the false. Having accurate and verified data, scientific method then proceeds to classify them, and this is the organizing of knowledge. The final process involves a summary of the facts and their relations by some simple expression or formula."

But a great difficulty that Evolutionists have long had has been in distinguishing "between the true, the not so sure, the merely possible, and the false." They have tended to evade a means of distinguishing between "accurate and verified data" (i.e., "facts") and their inferences from that data. While Evolutionists may typically have little problem in summarizing some subset of facts of interest, "their relations by some simple expression or formula" (laws) has always been problematic. While rigorous scientists are always looking to express the laws (the relationships between facts) of nature in mathematical notation, for example, Evolutionists have always been lacking in this regards. Thus, Crampton is quite correct, in my view, when he writes:

Loc.I(12/60): "It is because he feels so sure of what has been gained that the man of science seems to the unscientific to claim finality for his results. He himself is the first to point out that dogmatism is unjustified when its assertions are not so thoroughly grounded in reasonable fact as to render their contrary unthinkable. He seeks only for truth, realizing that new discoveries must oblige him to amend his statement of the laws of nature with every decade."

But when he continues, it is clear to me that Crampton and the man of Science he writes of, in this case some Evolutionist, have failed to adequately consider any alternative naturalistic views:

Loc.I(12/60): "But the great bulk of knowledge concerning life and living forms is so sure that science asserts, with a decision often mistaken for dogmatism, that evolution is a real natural process."

It is with this last sentence that the precise definition is called for. No one argues that "change over time," a common definition of "evolution," occurs and is "a real natural process." No naturalist would argue against naturalism. But the "descent with modification from common ancestors" that Evolutionists insist is true and also definitional of "evolution," is not at all obvious and, in my view, not parsimonious.

In addition to the general semantic muddle and issues regards words such as "evolution" (later Evolutionists provide other primary word examples not touched on by Crampton), another key epistemological issue concerns the nature of empirical science and the truth-values that are appropriately assigned to the observational data such that Crampton discusses verses the inferences drawn from such data. Of particular concern is the use of the term "fact" and "fact of evolution" such as in the following.

Loc. IV(2/79): "The purpose of the discussions up to this point has been to present the reasons drawn from the principal classes of zoölogical facts for believing that living things have transformed naturally to become what they now are. Even if it were possible to make an exhaustive analysis of all of the known phenomena of animal structure, development, and fossil succession, the complete bodies of knowledge could not make the evolutionary explanation more real and evident than it is shown to be by the simple facts and principles selected to constitute the foregoing outline. We have dealt solely with the evidences as to the fact of evolution; [....]"

Clearly, when Crampton and other researchers use "facts" in phrases such as "classes of zoological facts" and "the complete bodies of knowledge could not make the evolutionary explanation more real and evident than it is shown to be by the simple facts and principles [....]," these researchers are thinking scientifically. But when they insist that the inferences drawn from such observations must lead one to "the fact of evolution" these researchers have, in my view left the realm of science for the paradigmical ideology of Evolutionism. Evolution, however defined, is not a scientific fact. (Most physicists would not even label gravity as a fact. Newton used the label "phenomenon." And while physicists are able to provide mathematical descriptions for the laws of gravity, Evolutionists have never been able to do so for Evolution nor even variation or that which they might label microevolution. Further, while we can accept the realities of gravity as obvious truths, there are no realities of evolution that correspond to such events as apples falling to the ground.)

Let me be clear. I do not argue that the fundamental assumptions of modern science are incorrect. Science is, at its core, naturalistc and posits (i.e., assumes) a certain uniformity and continuity in that regards concerning the laws of nature and their existence over time. But when Crampton or others make statements as follows, they are not arguing science verses science with other scientists. Rather he and they are arguing the supposed validity of "evolution" verses some other epistemology, in this case creationism. Regards creationism and the supposed immutability of nature (the universe: geology; life), Crampton writes:

Loc. IV(2/79): "The naturalists of a century ago held a similar opinion regarding the earth, viewing it as an immutable and unchanged product of supernatural creation, until Lyell led them to see that the world is a plastic mass slowly altering in countless ways."

What I argue is that Evolutionists have led true scientists and all others astray by insisting that their naturalistic understanding of nature is not only correct but also the only possible naturalistic understanding. It is clear to me that an alternative, fully naturalistic understanding, is the more parsimonious, and thus the better, scientific view.

Product details Paperback 172 pages Publisher Qontro Classic Books (July 12, 2010) Language English ASIN B003VRZ90U

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The Doctrine of Evolution Its Basis and Its Scope Henry Edward Crampton Books Reviews

The 5-Star rating reflects the zero stars I give the book for its veracity in terms of Science and in terms of Natural History research and studies. I give the book ten stars for being an exemplar of some, but not all, of the definitional muddle and semantic issues that have prevailed since soon after Darwin published. The terms "evolution" and "fact," in particular, are exemplified here as these terms have been usurped and misused by Darwin's intellectual descendants. I will further discuss these terms below.

This book is recommended for those students interested in the credibility of science and how over dependence on false ideology in theoretical, especially historical, science has been a detractor to all science.

The author, Henry Crampton, is given credit for providing a good summary overview of the thinking of some of his contemporaries' and predecessors' naturalistic or creationistic views. Chapter IV of the book provides a good summary of Darwin's thinking as well as some of the post-Darwinian thinking of the time. Chapters V, VI, and VII are concerned with physical, mental, and social anthropology, respectively. The final Chapter XIII similarly follows Darwin's venue of discussions and thus the topics are ethics, religion, theology, science, and philosophy. My discussion below concerns what I see as some of the muddled thinking Evolutionists have come to as they assigned the term "evolution" to Darwin's views. My discussion is based on the now common acceptance of ideas expressed in Chapters I through IV.

The multiplicity of definitions assigned to "evolution" has long been indicative of the lack of rigor associated with Natural History studies as influenced by the practitioners of the prevailing paradigm, what I have come to label Evolutionism. The term "evolution" appears on the very first page of Crampton's book where it is seen as an all encompassing notion which, in essence, provides no meaning other than to separate "naturalists" from non-naturalists. (NOTE The "Loc." number shows the chapter, chapter page, and number of pages in the chapter in the ebook edition used for this review.)

Loc.I(1/60) "The Doctrine of Evolution is a body of principles and facts concerning the present condition and past history of the living and lifeless things that make up the universe. It teaches that natural processes have gone on in the earlier ages of the world as they do to-day, and that natural forces have ordered the production of all things about which we know."

This meaning of "evolution" as merely implying a naturalistic understanding as opposed to a supernaturalistic one is further elaborated below. If such a definition and equating of "evolution" to Crampton's "Doctrine of Evolution" were the sole definition, I wouldn't object. Julian Huxley and many other writers were vigorous advocates of such a cosmic meaning. But they, like Crampton, have also muddled research with other and more specific definitions. Such a cosmic meaning is not the meaning of "evolution" that has been taught to most school children ever since Darwin. Thus

Loc.I(13/60) "The conception of evolution in its turn now demands a definite description. How are we to regard the material things of the earth? Are they permanent and unchanged since the beginning of time, unchanging and unchangeable at the present? We do not need Herbert Spencer's elaborate demonstration that this is unthinkable, for we all know from daily experience that things do change and that nothing is immutable. Did things have a finite beginning, and have they been "made" by some supernatural force or forces, personified or impersonal, different from those agencies which we may see in operation at the present time? So says the doctrine of special creation. Finally, we may ask if things have changed as they now change under the influence of what we call the natural laws of the present, and which if they operated in the past would bring the world and all that is therein to be just what we find now. This is the teaching of the doctrine of evolution."

Thus, we see here that the author is further defining "evolution" as a paradigm juxtaposed against the non-natualistc paradigm, Creationism. Ah, but the notion of cosmic or universal "evolution" is soon too much for the author and, as is typical of today's Evolutionists, the author writes further so as to now exclude not only supposed or actual non-organic evolution (inorganic chemistry plus whatever else might be conceived of as being within the "universe") but also considerations related to the origins of life or lives. Therefore, for the same word, "evolution," the author now gives us an additional definition, albeit of "organic evolution," as a subset of evolution

Loc. I(17/60) "Organic evolution is thus a part of the greater cosmic process. As such it does not deal with the origin of life, but it begins with life, and concerns itself with the evolution of living things. And while the investigator is inevitably brought to consider the fundamental question as to the way the first life began, as a student of organic forms he takes life for granted and studies only the relationships and characteristics of animals and plants, and their origins."

Again, to be fair, the author does define "organic evolution" as opposed to just "evolution." But such a distinction has generally been lost with other Evolutionists.

Next, the author back tracks somewhat and foretells of a common modern definition of "change over time." He states

Loc.I(17/60) "But even as a preliminary definition, the statement that organic evolution means natural change does not satisfy us."

Not unlike most students of today, the author fully realizes that mere "change over time" or even "organic change over time" is not the core idea of "Evolution" as expressed by Evolutionists. Thus, Crampton attempts to elucidate the supposed real meaning of "evolution" (and supposedly prove it by redefinition). In an analogy I haven't seen before, Crampton likens an "evolving" technology, rail freight locomotives, so as to more than suggest the "evolution" of life by means of descent with modifications from common ancestors

Loc.I(17/60) "The great freight locomotive of the transcontinental lines, the swift engine of the express trains, the little coughing switch engine of the railroad yards, and the now extinct type that used to run so recently on the elevated railroads, are all in a true sense the descendants of a common ancestor, namely the locomotive of Stephenson. Each one has evolved by transformations of its various parts, and in its evolution it has become adapted or fitted to peculiar circumstances."

Astoundingly, the conclusion is reached

Loc.I(20/60) "Evolution, then, means descent with adaptive modification."

But, hey, let us not forget the common ancestry part of the definition. Thus, with but a little more tweaking of the definition and no more factual evidence we have

loc.I(54/60) "We have now learned that evolution means a common ancestry of living forms that have come to differ in the course of time; our common reason has shown us also that organisms are in a true sense complicated chemical mechanisms adapted to meet the conditions under which they must operate. We come now to the evidences offered by the organic world that evolution is true and that natural forces control its workings. Clearly the examination of the matter of fact is independent of the question of method."

So, now that "evolution" incorporates the notions of descent with modification and common ancestry, and since cosmic evolution and change over time are obvious understandings, let us really get to the matter and demonstrate that "evolution" and not just change over time is true.

Thus we have a repetition of Darwin's argument and supposed demonstrations, not of evolution (which is obvious) but of evolution (which is not at all obvious)

Loc.I(55/60) "In the complete scheme adopted by most naturalists, five categories include the evidences bearing upon the fact of evolution. These are Classification; Comparative Anatomy, or Morphology; Comparative Development, or Embryology; Paleontology, which comprises the facts provided by fossil relics of animals and plants of earlier geological ages; and Geographical Distribution. Each of these divisions includes a descriptive and analytical series of facts, whose characteristics are "explained" or summarized in the form of the general principles of the respective divisions. Such principles, taken singly and collectively, constitute the evidences of evolution."

The author has thus maintained the stage set by his contemporaries in providing a non-rigorous understanding of the meaning of the term "evolution" and, even worse in my view, the erroneous non-empirical use of "fact" as with "the fact of evolution." Future scholars would continue to expand the muddle with the addition of many alternative and unique definitions of "evolution" and continue the muddle regards scientific "fact".

Science The author, by adopting an Evolutionist's sloppy use of definitions and misunderstanding of "scientific fact," does, in my contrary view, at least provide an otherwise good notion of "science". He does at least seem to accept some very sensible statements regards science. In particular, the following is quite acceptable.

Loc. I(9/60) "Karl Pearson defines science as organized knowledge, and Huxley calls it organized common sense. These definitions mean the same thing. They mean that in order to know anything that deserves confidence, in order to obtain a real result, it is necessary in the first place to establish the reality of facts and to discriminate between the true, the not so sure, the merely possible, and the false. Having accurate and verified data, scientific method then proceeds to classify them, and this is the organizing of knowledge. The final process involves a summary of the facts and their relations by some simple expression or formula."

But a great difficulty that Evolutionists have long had has been in distinguishing "between the true, the not so sure, the merely possible, and the false." They have tended to evade a means of distinguishing between "accurate and verified data" (i.e., "facts") and their inferences from that data. While Evolutionists may typically have little problem in summarizing some subset of facts of interest, "their relations by some simple expression or formula" (laws) has always been problematic. While rigorous scientists are always looking to express the laws (the relationships between facts) of nature in mathematical notation, for example, Evolutionists have always been lacking in this regards. Thus, Crampton is quite correct, in my view, when he writes

Loc.I(12/60) "It is because he feels so sure of what has been gained that the man of science seems to the unscientific to claim finality for his results. He himself is the first to point out that dogmatism is unjustified when its assertions are not so thoroughly grounded in reasonable fact as to render their contrary unthinkable. He seeks only for truth, realizing that new discoveries must oblige him to amend his statement of the laws of nature with every decade."

But when he continues, it is clear to me that Crampton and the man of Science he writes of, in this case some Evolutionist, have failed to adequately consider any alternative naturalistic views

Loc.I(12/60) "But the great bulk of knowledge concerning life and living forms is so sure that science asserts, with a decision often mistaken for dogmatism, that evolution is a real natural process."

It is with this last sentence that the precise definition is called for. No one argues that "change over time," a common definition of "evolution," occurs and is "a real natural process." No naturalist would argue against naturalism. But the "descent with modification from common ancestors" that Evolutionists insist is true and also definitional of "evolution," is not at all obvious and, in my view, not parsimonious.

In addition to the general semantic muddle and issues regards words such as "evolution" (later Evolutionists provide other primary word examples not touched on by Crampton), another key epistemological issue concerns the nature of empirical science and the truth-values that are appropriately assigned to the observational data such that Crampton discusses verses the inferences drawn from such data. Of particular concern is the use of the term "fact" and "fact of evolution" such as in the following.

Loc. IV(2/79) "The purpose of the discussions up to this point has been to present the reasons drawn from the principal classes of zoölogical facts for believing that living things have transformed naturally to become what they now are. Even if it were possible to make an exhaustive analysis of all of the known phenomena of animal structure, development, and fossil succession, the complete bodies of knowledge could not make the evolutionary explanation more real and evident than it is shown to be by the simple facts and principles selected to constitute the foregoing outline. We have dealt solely with the evidences as to the fact of evolution; [....]"

Clearly, when Crampton and other researchers use "facts" in phrases such as "classes of zoological facts" and "the complete bodies of knowledge could not make the evolutionary explanation more real and evident than it is shown to be by the simple facts and principles [....]," these researchers are thinking scientifically. But when they insist that the inferences drawn from such observations must lead one to "the fact of evolution" these researchers have, in my view left the realm of science for the paradigmical ideology of Evolutionism. Evolution, however defined, is not a scientific fact. (Most physicists would not even label gravity as a fact. Newton used the label "phenomenon." And while physicists are able to provide mathematical descriptions for the laws of gravity, Evolutionists have never been able to do so for Evolution nor even variation or that which they might label microevolution. Further, while we can accept the realities of gravity as obvious truths, there are no realities of evolution that correspond to such events as apples falling to the ground.)

Let me be clear. I do not argue that the fundamental assumptions of modern science are incorrect. Science is, at its core, naturalistc and posits (i.e., assumes) a certain uniformity and continuity in that regards concerning the laws of nature and their existence over time. But when Crampton or others make statements as follows, they are not arguing science verses science with other scientists. Rather he and they are arguing the supposed validity of "evolution" verses some other epistemology, in this case creationism. Regards creationism and the supposed immutability of nature (the universe geology; life), Crampton writes

Loc. IV(2/79) "The naturalists of a century ago held a similar opinion regarding the earth, viewing it as an immutable and unchanged product of supernatural creation, until Lyell led them to see that the world is a plastic mass slowly altering in countless ways."

What I argue is that Evolutionists have led true scientists and all others astray by insisting that their naturalistic understanding of nature is not only correct but also the only possible naturalistic understanding. It is clear to me that an alternative, fully naturalistic understanding, is the more parsimonious, and thus the better, scientific view.